A Slower Speed of Light is an open-source game being developed by the Massachusetts Instiute of Technology’s Game Lab, based entirely on the concept of relativity. If Albert Einstein were alive, this would be the game for him.

A Slower Speed of Light tasks players with navigating a 3D space (with a very Journey-esque main character) while picking up orbs that reduce the speed of light in increments. As the player’s speed changes, relativity starts to affect the visual effects of the game, producing a challenge to the player that intuitively explores the concepts behind relativity. These effects happen in realtime, including:

The Doppler effect: red- and blue-shifting of visible light, and the shifting of infrared and ultraviolet light into the visible spectrum;

The searchlight effect: increased brightness in the direction of travel;

Time dilation: differences in the perceived passage of time from the player and the outside world;

Lorentz transformation: warping of space at near-light speeds;

The runtime effect: the ability to see objects as they were in the past, due to the travel time of light.

Players will also be able to tweet their thoughts on Twitter, and the game designers are encouraging programmers to use the game’s code and make their own games of relativity with it. This seems like a job for Valve or Kim Swift.

A Slower Speed of Light is still in progress, and will be free upon launch, with a targeted release date for 2013. To download its current build for Mac or PC, check out MIT’s Game Lab here, and for more details, check out our Gallery after the video. As always, stay tuned for more news on Dualshockers.